Friday, March 16, 2012

SOCIETY WITHIN KONY 2012
    
    A Viral video, directed by Jason Russell,  has been released recently. With almost one hundred million views, this thirty minute short film has millions of people stunned through social networking sites, such as, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter,  and so on... Russell emphasizes the experiences that the kids in Uganda, Africa have suffered from by the power of Joseph Kony, one of the most wanted criminals of the world. His intentions are clear as told, he abducts children, boys and girls, uses them for sexual intentions, recruits them for his army, and forces them to kill their families.

     KONY 2012 is a non-profit open organization, made by INVISIBLE CHILDREN. The purpose of the video is to make Kony, not infamous, but as famous as possible in the world. With this at hand, those who are willing to contribute themselves are to donate money towards this normative organization, to help support the movement, and advertise his name all over major cities. The idea is that if the government realizes that America has a lot of supporters for the suffering kids in Africa, they will most likely affiliate themselves with more international affairs.

     This organization in society has its ups and downs. Obviously, with a high amount of supporters through social networking, this group has a high cohesion. Their purpose is shared to fight for the freedom of these African children by taking the first big step in informing the Government of this affair. Thus, hoping for United States military to be sent to Uganda, and finding Joseph Kony.

     I believe we the people of society play our role to be a more responsible about international affairs, and yet most people in society cannot play their role as an American. Most American teenagers probably are more concerned about Kony 2012 (not saying they shouldn't) more than they are concerned about affairs within the United States itself, such as, the huge debt we owe to china. It is our responsibility to understand the world before we approach it.

     The three stages of the Looking-glass self defined by Charles Horton Cooley, explains a lot how people construct themselves to support the popularity of Kony. Society basically breaks down by how we assume the majority is in favor of. What I am trying to say is: we watched a 30 minute video, all of a sudden were all concerned about Africa? Why weren't we concerned when Kony developed power in the beginning? By fitting into an organization, we as individuals feel accepted into society itself, therefore, we affiliate ourselves to bigger and larger groups to feel as the majority of society.



2 comments:

  1. Wow! Thanks for your honesty, This blog entry made me reflect on myself. I'm apart of the group of people who felt the need to spread the word via facebook, word of mouth etc. after reading this I'm asking and wondering Why? How do we become a media puppets? When will one (including myself) take a stand and be different, like our many greats?

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  2. I strongly agree with all your arguments, but we have to see the positive site of this situation which is that at least more people are aware of the situation in Uganda. Many people felt the need of doing something after watching the video, because most of them realize that they were "blind" by the media and their own problems.

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